Machines for making ice and more particularly for making ice cubes are widely used, particularly in bars, hotels, motels, and the like. These units characteristically are unitized and can be increased in their capacity by the addition of supplemental ice-making units which can be added to the standard bin storage unit. In some instances, the units can selectively have from one to five ice-cube making units stacked on top of the main base which includes the ice cube bin storage compartment. The units are normally rated on the basis of pounds of ice which are produced by the units under ideal conditions during a 24-hour period. A "400 pound" unit makes 400 pounds of ice in 24 hours under ideal conditions. In one particular case, however, where three units were mounted on top of the base, and no additional head room or other space was available in the particular building where the unit was located, only about 1,000 pounds per day were being produced, instead of the rated 1200 pounds. This was in part due to the fact that the temperature of the water which was being supplied to the machines for making ice was in the order of 83 degrees F., because the input line to the ice-cube making unit came through the attic, and the relatively slow rate of flow caused the incoming water to be warmed to close to the attic temperature. In the particular installation, there was no additional space available for installing additional units, and in all events, such additional units would have been quite expensive, costing in the order of $2,000 or $3,000 for each additional unit to be added to an existing installation, and substantially more for a second base and complete installation, if there had been enough space for such a second installation.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, it was discovered that substantial quantities of ice cold water are actually drained from ice-making machines in the course of the "harvest" cycle and also from the storage bin. More specifically, it has been determined that in each harvest cycle from each unit, in the order of one or two gallons of cold water close to freezing temperature are lost. Accordingly, with three units, and a harvest cycle occurring four times or more per hour, in the order of 12 to 25 gallons of water are drained from the ice-making units themselves each hour. In addition, although the ice bins in which the ice cubes are stored are insulated, substantial quantities of additional drain water result from some melting of these cubes.